Essay Preview: Developing Leaders for Good Governance

In a small portion of Pasig City lies Sapang Liwanag, a creek often unnoticed but extremely important to the health of Manila Bay, Pasig River and Marikina River as the creek flows to these big bodies of water. For a long time, however, Sapang Liwanag had been clogged with garbage. To address this, the local government collaborated with three big commercial establishments to rehabilitate the creek. Men and women share its partnership to de clog the creek and keep it clean. Behind the success of this initiative is DILG leader Rizalina Vincua.

Time Complex

DILG leader Rizalina Vincua a petite and soft spoken lady was

used to be reserved- preferring to keep ideas to herself. She was the type of person who always says “okay” to avoid confrontations. She admitted that she used to be “always rushing” - beating deadlines or doing tasks in a hurry- lack creativity because she always feel that she has no time to think. She lost her passion for work and as the result, the quality of her work suffered.

Viewpoint

Rizalina Vincua a petite, soft spoken and used to be reserved lady stood out from the crowd for her big and creative ideas. She never imagined that she would lead a pack of men to do an invaluable rehabilitation project. Vincua’s transformation was something she did not plan or expect. The turning point in her life came when she attended the cluster leader’s leadership training program. This training helps her to regain her commitment to work. She learned a lot of things that would somehow contributed to the success of her project- rehabilitating the Sapang Liwanag Creek.

Statement of the Problem

When the City Director asked Vincua to develop a project for their cooperative arrangement and collaborative undertakings, she found the opportunity to put her acquired knowledge and skills to good use and started the project on Sapang Liwanag. Rizalina Vincua encountered several problems in pursuing her effort to rehabilitate the creek which was already a dying creek that time. First, the support of the companies she expects has been refused. Aside from the challenge to get support from the local community, Vincua also discovered that the local government lacked funds to support the program. Despite the problems, Vincua accepted the challenge.

Equipped by the knowledge and skills acquired by Rizalina Vincua from leadership training.

Weakness

Lack of funds to support the program.

The nearby companies refused to cooperate on rehabilitating the creek.

Opportunity

Sapang Liwanag creek plays a vital role in preserving the Manila Bay, Pasig River and Marikina River.

Great opportunity for Rizalina Vincua to be given a much bigger responsibilities in the future.

Threat

Support from the community in rehabilitating the creek.

Recommendations

Rizalina Vincua - a petite and soft spoken lady and a DILG leader is behind the success of rehabilitating Sapang Liwanag, a creek which had been clogged with garbage- unnoticed but extremely important to the health of Manila Bay, Marikina River and Pasig River as the creek flows to these big bodies of water. During the process of rehabilitating the creek, Rizalina Vincua encountered several problems- refusal of the companies to cooperate on the said activity and lacked of funds coming from the local community to support the program. These problems brought challenges to Rizalina Vincua. But despite the difficulties, she gamely accepted the challenge, regularly reflecting on the learning’s she gained from the leadership training. Her transformation was something she did not expect. The leader’s leadership training program became the turning point in her life. All the efforts exerted during the rehabilitation of the creek resulted to an overwhelming outcome. Vincua has surpassed her challenges as a leader.

Effective leaders empower and influence his people to achieve business and team goals. How do effective leaders created? One way of creating effective leader is thru administering leadership training. One of the important contributions of leadership training is that it develops and nurtures future leaders. Nurturing future leaders supports succession planning and offers career pathways to employees, further increasing retention. In case of Rizalina Vincua, leadership training helps her to discover a lot of things about herself- competencies that she can enhance, dreams that she can pursue and what she can do. She surpassed all the difficulties she encountered in rehabilitating the creek. Vincua’s solution for Sapang Liwanag was proof of how she was able to unleash her creativity and potentials using the concepts she learned from the training. Through the training, Vincua was able to reflect on her personal leadership journey and gain a better perspective of her leadership competency.

Potential problem

According to the American Society of Training and Development, businesses spend more than $170 billion dollars on leadership-based curriculum, with the majority of those dollars being spent on “Leadership Training”. The thing is, when it comes to leadership, the training industry has been broken for years. We don’t train leaders, we develop them- a subtle yet important distinction lost on many. The problem with training is it presumes the need for indoctrination on systems, processes and techniques. Training assumes that said systems, processes and techniques are the right way to do things. When a trainer refers to something as “best practices” you can assure that’s not the case. Training focuses on best practices, while development focuses on next practices. Training is often rote, one directional, one dimensional, one size fits all and imposes outdated information on people. Perhaps worst of all, training usually occurs within a vacuum driven by past experience, not by future needs.